Each flip of the calendar is like watching the time slowly run out of an hourglass as to whether or not the Hawai‘i High School Athletic Association will have any kind of spring season.
The calendar flipped from January to February, and now into March. Just that quickly, the first business quarter of the year has nearly evaporated.
Time is not only short, but it also flies, and now the sand in the hourglass continues to pour downstream. It is almost out of time to have a spring season.
We are inching closer and closer to graduation season, and with Honolulu beginning to transition into Tier-3 COVID-19 restrictions, the question still lingers: What will happen with HHSAA-sanctioned spring sports?
HHSAA Executive Director Christopher Chun, who has appeared on some recent Zoom panels on how to open up schools safely, broke his silence to the media.
What now? According to KHON2 reports, Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi will be asking Gov. David Ige to modify sports across the board with protocols in place.
What happens in Honolulu will be of big importance to the Kaua‘i Interscholastic Federation, as all the parts on the chessboard begin to move towards what appears to be a soft return of high-school sports.
Chun remained non-committal as to when and how HHSAA-sanctioned sports would return in the islands.
In the interview with KHON2, Chun did offer some insight into the organization’s immediate future plans, as the pieces methodically move forward.
“It’s a good first step because, as you know, for the high schools, both public and private, they need the county of Honolulu facilities to run events,” Chun told KHON2 Sports Director Rob DeMello.
“We need Central O‘ahu Regional Park to run baseball and softball. We need Ala Wai (Field) and we need Goeas (Baseball Field). These are all county facilities that we use for baseball and softball.”
Chun further expounded on the organization’s position.
“Without those facilities, we wouldn’t be able to hold a high-school season, so it’s a positive,” Chun said. “It’s not the final hurdle, but it’s a step in the right direction.”
With only three months remaining, it is inevitable the season will be abridged, as many of the athletes will still have to work on getting their conditioning level back to where they were before the pandemic. And they will have limited time to do so.
Before the final gun on the season and this school year sounds, we should see a soft return of tennis, softball, bowling and baseball, to name a few of the spring sports.
This, like everything else in the COVID-19 universe, is certainly not promised.
However, it is important to remain optimistic that spring sports such as track and field could occur.
The success of some of the recreational sports at the start of the year such as the Kaua‘i Senior Softball League certainly hasn’t gone unnoticed.
Chun offered more insight into HHSAA’s potential moves.
“I’m confident in some form that the kids will be able to do something,” Chun told the network. “The good thing about spring sports is that most of the sports are low-risk. Most of them, I would say the majority of them, are outdoor sports like golf, baseball and softball. Even though they require county facilities, they are all outdoors. They are all stuff that you can safely socially distance.”
As the pieces slowly continue to fall into place, all eyes remain on O‘ahu, as their COVID-19 numbers are dwindling.
Only time will tell, even if for this season it is running out.
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Jason Blasco, reporter, can be reached at 245-0437 or jblasco@thegardenisland.com.
O i don’t think so. I think they just want to get back in the swing of things. They just want to have fame and popularity in front of their peers. Basketball. Watching in the gym. That thought. Some people stay with this all their life.
Not going to happen. If the coronavirus gets larger, the new variant strain, they’ll keep it the same way. For the whole year.